February 2010 Archives

Last night at the Metropolitan Opera, I witnessed something that I've never seen in some 40 years of regularly attending performances there.

I usually perch in the more-bang-for-the-buck Dress Circle boxes, which sometimes gives me back strain from twisting sideways but also gives me a birds-eye view of the orchestra. At the curtain call for Verdi's rarity, Attila, the members of the orchestra, most of whom usually file out as soon as the conductor leaves the pit, not only remained, but turned to the stage to give conductor Riccardo Muti, making his inexplicably overdue debut at the Met, a standing ovation.

The NY Times reviewer, Anthony Tommasini, already noted in his review of the first performance, that the entire chorus, onstage for the curtain calls, also applauded the maestro.

Some of the principal singers had shaky moments in their generally well sung roles. Herzog & de Meuron's sets were clunky (not only figuratively, but also literally, during several long and very noisy scene changes). But the ear-opening glory of this performance was the precise, impassioned, lustrous performance of the Met's orchestra and chorus under the baton of the former music director of La Scala and soon-to-be music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The NY Philharmonic, to my deep regret, lost out on snaring Muti as its own new music director. So now we've got the solid but stolid Alan Gilbert, under whose plodding baton the fine work that Lorin Maazel did in honing the orchestra into a well-oiled instrument (which had never sounded better during my 40 or so years of attending concerts) is already unraveling.

I love my ritual of attending regular Philharmonic performances as a long-time subscriber. I like my seats. But I'm thinking seriously of giving them up and defecting next season to a series at Carnegie Hall---not just because of Gilbert's conducting, which may deepen with time, but also because of what looks to me like an unexciting season in Avery Fisher Hall. (The part that most interests me is Hungarian Echos: A Philharmonic Festival---four concerts combining Haydn, Bartok and Ligeti, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.)

Similar to the Philharmonic, the Met Opera orchestra and chorus have not, to my ears, been the the well-honed instrument that enraptured me when music director James Levine spent more time in the house, before he began two-timing us with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

I hate sounding like one of those old fogeys who croak, "Things just aren't what they used to be." They're not.

You seem to be a stickler for facts but you don't represent them accurately here at all. First of all, the neighbors were NEVER hostile to the Barnes Foundation. For years we lived in perfect harmony with 100 people lining up in front of the gate to get in, parking on the street, whatever.

The neighbors initially gathered in the early '90's because of the interstate tour buses that were idling for hours on the street, spewing fumes into our homes, and to discuss [former Barnes president] Richard Glanton's proposal for a parking lot, which would mean that anyone who thought they might like to go to the Barnes would be cruising by, stopping to see if they could get tickets, double parking, etc. We wanted the Foundation to bring people in using shuttle buses which could negotiate the turn into the foundation drop off people and leave.

None of this has to do with hostility to the Barnes and is what neighbors do all over the township and the world when they want some peace and tranquility.

The Steering committee of the Friends of the Barnes is composed mainly of former students of the Barnes, not neighbors, and the membership of Friends of the Barnes is made of of people from all over the world who deplore this move.

Philippe de Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum, added another medal to his trophy case yesterday when he became only the fourth person ever to have received both the National Medal of the Arts and the National Humanities Medal. The other double-medalists were philanthropist Paul Mellon and authors Eudora Welty and John Updike. Yesterday, he picked up the humanities gold. In 2002, he medaled in the arts.

Here's a screen shot taken from the video of the awards ceremony (about 22 minutes into the clip), of de Montebello with President Obama, who has just hung Philippe's latest acquisition around his neck. (Purple-clad Michelle's sleek coif is in the front row.):



The citation says de Montebello received the honor "for his vision in bringing great art to an international public and his leadership in revitalizing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for fostering arts appreciation among people of all ages." (But can he nail the triple toe loop?)

Here's a passage that seems particularly pertinent in these financially challenging times from the profile of de Montebello, written for the occasion by Robert Messenger, senior editor of the Weekly Standard:

One of de Montebello's most important decisions came in the late 1980s when he stopped the Met from charging a separate fee for special exhibitions---a widespread practice in the art world. "If you have only one ticket, which you've paid a lot of money for, you're only going to see the show once. And, if you can't come back three or four times, you're not really seeing the show."

Two visual artists were among the 10 chosen for the National Medal of the Arts: Frank Stella and Maya Lin. For the complete list of recipients and their citations, go here.

Director Don Argott, left, and executive producer Lenny Feinberg, right, discussing "The Art of the Steal" after its screening at the New York Film Festival

With today's commercial opening of Don Argott's much anticipated documentary examining the upcoming relocation of the Barnes Foundation from Merion to Philadelphia, it's time for CultureGrrl's two-part movie review. (Carrie Rickey's astute assessment in today's Philadelphia Inquirer is here; Manhola Dargis's appraisal in todays NY Times is here.)

I've now seen the fervid and flawed Art of the Steal twice. I needed the second viewing to get over my gut reaction to the first and begin to appreciate the constructive indignation that its tabloid approach may be able to ignite among less knowledgeable audiences. I believe, though, that a better informed, more resourceful filmmaker might have made the case against moving the Barnes Foundation more forcefully, if less sensationally.

As a journalist who deplores the move and has covered from the beginning the attempts by Philadelphia's movers-and-shakers to pry loose the celebrated collection from Merion, PA (where founder Albert Barnes had stipulated it was to remain), I was put off, during my first viewing, by the film's glaring gaffes and omissions, not to mention its overheated rhetoric.

The distortions start with the film's title (previously used by author Christopher Mason for his 2004 book about the Sotheby's-Christie's price-fixing scandal). No Barnes masterpieces have been "stolen," let alone "sold" (as the poster for the movie seems to suggest). There was no "heist."

As the Barnes' newly appointed general counsel, Brett Miller, has recently argued in his published rebuttal to an attack in the Art Newspaper by dealer Richard Feigen (who appears in the movie), the relocation is no "kidnapping"; it was engineered with court approval. That said, I firmly believe (as I will later explain) that the December 2004 court decision, handed down by a widely respected judge, involved a serious miscarriage of justice.

This intrastate transport of masterpieces is surely not "the greatest act of cultural vandalism since World War II." Nor was philanthropist Ray Perelman (whose offense was suggesting to the Governor that moving the Barnes might be good for Philly) the nefarious monster he is made out to be in an astonishing segment where a reporter who had previously been chewed out by Perelman settles this score, vituperatively, on camera.

Perhaps the best metaphor for what happened to the Barnes is "takeover": The institution fell into stronger hands after being seriously vitiated by mismanagement and further endangered by the then-hostile neighbors who, paradoxically, are now leading the charge to keep it in Merion.

In the old days, these same "Friends of the Barnes," inconvenienced by invading crowds and vehicular incursions, were the foundation's harshest critics, opposing any increases in public hours that might have yielded additional income for the financially strapped facility. When the neighbors, the township and the county finally awakened to the value of what they were about to lose, the actions they took (allowing more visitation, offering to float a $50-million bond issue, trying unsuccessfully to reopen the court case) were too little, too late.

The film's most obvious omission, which director Don Argott has freely acknowledged, both in the film itself and in interviews, was its failure to get the principal figures supporting the move (with two key exceptions) to participate. It seems that they expected a hatchet job.

Argott disingenuously told Eric Kohn of the Wall Street Journal that he "went into this with a blank slate," when in fact he received his assignment from executive producer Lenny Feinberg, a real estate investor from a Philadelphia suburb and a former Barnes Foundation student, who made it clear during the post-screening discussion on stage at the New York Film Festival that he was always intent on an exposé.

Feinberg said this [via] to Sam Adams of Philadelphia City Paper:

I made it clear with the filmmakers in interviews that I would be hands-on in every aspect, which is just the way I felt about this story. I wasn't just the guy who was writing a check. I know that's not the way it's normally done, but I didn't give a damn. Don said, "Hey, man, it's your money. You can do whatever you want." Other people just wanted me to fund them and go away.

Nonetheless, Argott is quoted by the NY Times' Constance Rosenblum, as saying, "We never set out to make an agenda piece." It appears that the Barnes' president and executive director, Derek Gillman, correctly thought otherwise. He said this to Rosenblum about the film:

It was made by people who were hostile to the move and very angry about it. That's why we didn't cooperate with the filmmakers. It was not in our interests to do so.

I have to say this for Gillman and the rest of the Barnes crew: I'm also "hostile to the move," but (I'd like to believe) my journalistic approach is reasoned, not "angry." (It's more a combination of sorrow and, as you will see in Part Two of this review, righteous indignation.) The Barnes brass still do talk to me, even knowing my opposition to what they're doing. Reasonable people can disagree.

But back to the film's gaffes and omissions:

---Whatever you want to say about Moses and Walter Annenberg, they were not "WASPs," as the movie seems to suggest.

---The always voluble former president of the Barnes, Richard Glanton, gets lots of face time in the movie, but his successor, Kimberly Camp, is not heard from, nor do we know if the filmmakers ever attempted to contact her (or even know that she exists).

---The disgraced former president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, Barry Munitz, who pops up a couple of times in the film, is a bizarre choice as a go-to person for an authoritative statement on anything.

---The van Gogh painting at Sotheby's that dealer Richard Feigen dismisses on camera as not up the the quality level of the Barnes (which, in fact, does display a large number of mediocrities, as well as masterpieces) did not exceed its presale estimate, as Feigen confidently predicted; it drew no apparent bidders and famously failed to sell.

The strangest gaffe is the film's heavy reliance on Mark Schwartz for elucidiation of the legal case. Schwartz is identified in the film as an attorney for Montgomery County and the Friends of the Barnes. Unmentioned in the film (and perhaps unknown to Argott) is that both the County and the Friends got Schwartz off the case early---a result of various missteps (including arguments in court that provoked the judge to admonish him), as well as a payment dispute.

These goofs demonstate that, in one sense, Argott really was, as he described himself, "a blank slate": Don has publicly admitted that until he was tapped by Feinberg, he was one of the many Philadelphians who had never set foot in the Barnes.

Nevertheless, he did manage to assemble many highly knowledgeable, level-headed commentators to contribute their insights to the film---LA Times art critic Christopher Knight; former Smithsonian assistant secretary Tom Freudenheim; and most notably---civil rights activist Julian Bond, whose father Horace Mann Bond, former president of Lincoln University, was a close friend of Albert Barnes; and author John Anderson, who, in 2003, published the definitive book chronicling the Barnes story, ending at the time when Judge Stanley Ott of Montgomery County Orphans' Court announced that he would hold hearings on the proposed move.

Although Argott tapped these reliable, convincing sources, he apparently lacked a consultant with full knowledge of the saga to go over the entire film, saving him from the mistakes and missteps that undermine what he was trying to achieve.

That said, I'm a tough critic when it comes to accuracy. The film may have the beneficial effect of swaying general public opinion, despite its omissions and mistakes. Unfortunately, though, like the other recent efforts to save the Barnes, this film's impact is likely to be too little, too late.

COMING SOON: The miscarriage of justice (ignored by the film) that green-lighted the Barnes move. Also, the film's smoking-gun revelation. [UPDATE: Part II of this review is here.]

How does one describe the agglomeration of new art that has just opened at the Whitney?

Is it the "tweak-intensive" Biennial (Holland Cotter of the NY Times), the "Obama Biennial" (Jerry Saltz in NY Magazine) or "the shy Biennial" (Linda Yablonsky for Bloomberg)? Why do critics feel the need to come up with a catch-phrase?

I think it's hard to come up with a pithy epithet for this year's Whitney salon because it is not shaped by an overriding artistic trend or curatorial sensibility. I too came up with an over-simplification---"Things are not what they seem." Perhaps I should coin a new term: "irreality."

Speaking of salons, this painting from the Whitney's show (with a face peering out from the upper left)...


Jim Lutes, "Tool," 2009

...reminded me of the "Salon Cubism" arrayed in an evocation of the 1912 Salon d'Automne exhibition in Paris, which was the Picasso-less centerpiece of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's current permanent-collection show, Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris. (I'll have more on this faux salon, including a CultureGrrl Video from the scene, in a future post.):



My own take on the Whitney's compendium of the new (as well as the works that I selected for mention) most resembled Yablonsky's. I said that the show "has no overriding concept or theme" and "does not coalesce." She said it "doesn't always seem to know whether it is coming or going. Nor will the viewer, who must change mental gears at every turn."

Linda's commentary owes nothing to mine, although mine appeared first. When I ran into FabYab at the Museum of Modern Art's Kentridge preview on Tuesday, before I trekked over to the Whitney, she told me that she had already filed her Biennial copy. I didn't her ask what she thought; she didn't volunteer. Great minds think alike.

The biggest coincidence was our reproduction of the same image, chosen from the works of 55 artists. It was the same painting from a series of untitled still-life abstractions by Lesley Vance, which we both termed "beautiful." But Bloomberg's image, unidentified on its website, added dark areas on both sides of the painting, wrecking the composition. My photo of the actual painting on the Whitney's wall is on the right:



















Linda also scored a Biennial article on the website of the NY Times' style magazine, in which she took note of the "gender equality" of this year's edition. Unnoted by the commentators I've read is that no such balance is found in the companion exhibition on the fifth floor, "Collecting Biennials," which consists of works in the museum's permanent collection by artists from prior biennials.

By my count from that checklist, a mere 10 of those 57 artists are women. We've come a long way, Whitney?

Poster for "The Art of the Steal"

The Barnes Foundation's latest E-Newletter, which recently hit my inbox, conveyed this sad message:

Join and receive FREE tickets to enjoy the final year [emphasis added] of the Barnes collection in Merion as few can. You will also receive permanent status as a Founding Member of the Barnes on the Parkway.

FINAL YEAR in Merion? So soon? (The new Philly Barnes is scheduled to open in 2012.)

The same Barnes newsletter also introduced me to the construction-site webcam, where we can follow the lamentable progress of the facility that shouldn't be built. Now I won't have to scoot over to the construction site whenever I'm in Philadelphia to shoot my own photos. "Currently the digging of the foundation has been completed and the pouring of the concrete footings has begun," the newsletter informs us.

Meanwhile, opponents of the Barnes move are gearing up for the premiere of the anti-move movie, The Art of the Steal, tomorrow in Philadelphia. (It will also open tomorrow in New York.) Beginning yesterday, the documentary, directed by Don Argott, was available for home viewing through IFC On Demand. (You can check availability in your area here.)


Don Argott at Alice Tully Hall in New York, before the screening of his "The Art of the Steal" at the New York Film Festival

If the predicted snows don't keep them away, the opponents of the move are planning a pre-movie rally, Friday at 6:45 p.m. at the Ritz 5 theater in Philly. Congressman Jim Gerlach, Drexel professor Robert Zaller and John Anderson, author of Art Held Hostage: The Battle Over the Barnes Collection, are expected to speak. All appear in the film, with Anderson playing a key role by providing a solid factual foundation (partly undermined by the filmmakers' gaffes and omissions).

I promised you my own review, pegged to the film's commercial release...COMING SOON.

Finally, on a self-promotional note, it's more than a little ironic that three of the four ads in my blog's righthand column have just ended their runs, leaving behind a lone advertisement, bearing the eat-your-heart-out image of the Barnes Foundation's beloved facility that we're set to lose alarmingly soon. While I hope for an influx of new ads, my warmest thanks go out to CultureGrrl Donors 114, 115 and 116, from New York City, Zionsville, IN, and Washington.

A retrospective of Whitney Biennial catalogues in a display case at the current Biennial

I don't want to dyspeptically dismiss the many individual works that didn't speak to me at the Whitney Biennial, but, needless to say, I was astonished by Charlie Finch's rave today on Artnet, in which he brashly announces: "This is not only the greatest of Whitney Biennials, it is the greatest show ever produced by the Whitney Museum." Has he really seen ALL of them?

I'll admit that my reaction to the Biennial was influenced by the place where I had just been before arriving at the Whitney yesterday---the press preview for the masterful, disturbing and profoundly moving William Kentridge show, organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and beautifully installed at the Museum of Modern Art (to May 17). I do wish that New York museums would avoid choosing the same day for press previews of major shows!

William Kentridge: Five Themes is a very intense, time-intensive show. I couldn't begin to do it justice in the small period that I had for it yesterday. I'll be back to savor it, and I'm hoping also to make it to the Kentridge's production of Shostakovich's The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera. Beginning on Friday, the (operatic) Met will present in its lobby gallery an exhibition of Kentridge's work for his production.

For me, Finch's introductory sentence for his Biennial encomium would have been much more appropriate praise were it applied to the Kentridge show:

If you believe that art is about dignity, respect, depth of thought and purpose of craft, then the 2010 Whitney Biennial [I'd substitute, "the Kentridge survey"] is the show for you.

William Kentridge, speaking at Museum of Modern Art's press preview, before rushing off to a rehearsal for "The Nose," his production at Metropolitan Opera

Solemn Duo: Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari, co-organizers of this year's Whitney Biennial

During the remarks at yesterday's press preview for the 2010 Whitney Biennial, the 75th edition of what the museum describes as its "signature exhibition," there seemed to be a lack of chemistry between the two organizers of the show---guest curator Francesco Bonami, the middle-aged former senior curator of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and Gary Carrion-Murayari, the young associate curator of the Whitney.

In an Interview interview (and fashion spread!) conducted by former Whitney curator Lisa Phillips (now director of the New Museum), Bonami suggested there was more bonhomie than was apparent at the rostrum. He described their interaction this way to Lisa (an old Biennial wrangler herself):

We just looked at artists together and decided. The process was very fun....It worked very well.

Whatever their working relationship, the resulting agglomeration, which the curators concede has no overriding concept or theme, does not coalesce. Unlike previous Biennials, which often reflected some unifying (if, at times, off-putting) sensibility, each floor in the latest version is its own realm, with seemingly little connection to the rest of the show. And in many cases, the text on the labels seemed a lot more weighty than the works themselves.

My favorite was the fourth floor---more "museum-like," as critic Eleanor Heartney termed it when I encountered her before I myself had gotten there. It had a higher concentration of works that, to me, had more substance and appeal. As distinguished from the scattershot second floor and the video-intensive third floor, a number of artists were represented in more depth on the fourth floor, including a large room of unexpectedly decorative Charles Ray florals, of all things:



The work that will stick with me the most probably wasn't even conceived as an artwork: It is photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair's horrific and haunting series of nine digital prints---"Self-Immolation in Afghanistan: A Cry for Help," 2005. This was the only portion of the show that, as far as I saw, bore a "parental discretion" label.

At first, I thought the subject was war victims. Then I read the title and the description:

These women, who were being cared for in a rudimentary public hospital in the town of Herat, ...set themselves on fire in acts of utter desperation. Some of the women shared their personal histories of prolonged abuse at the hands of their husbands or families with Sinclair....Partially in response to the widespread attention these images received from media outlets around the world, a new burn unit was created in Herat.

Here's a partial installation shot of Sinclair's photos:



And here's one of the nine images:



On a completely different note (also on the fourth floor), I also admired the jewel-like beauty of Lesley Vance's series of abstract paintings based on photographs of carefully arranged still lifes. Here's one:



If there's any thread that runs through this show, I think it could be expressed as: "Things are not what they seem." There's a certain malleability or unreliability of images---both literally, as in Tauba Auerbach's trompe l'oeil paintings...



...or through a masking process, as in Curtis Mann's bleached and manipulated photographs documenting the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which are transformed into an abstract, Jennifer Bartlett-like patchwork...



...or through a reimagining and morphing of concrete reality, as in Vance's abstraction.

You will soon have your pick of reviews that will probably find more of value in this show than I did. For now, I'll leave you with a CultureGrrl Video, below, of Francesco introducing "2010" to the press, with the stony-faced Gary standing stiffly at his side. The young curator does smile and nod in agreement, though, when Bonami remarks on how the young Whitney-ites did not seem to desire his company after hours.

Bonami considered it a good sign that none of the artists in the show had complained about it. He also provided us with a possible adjective for our own appraisals, in his surprising description of the atmosphere that he believes pervades the works on the second floor. Let's see how many reviewers describes those works as "creepy"---something that you will not find in the official online description, which refers, instead, to "diverse responses to the anxiety and optimism characteristic of this moment."

Whitney Wizard: Francesco Bonami

As I gird myself to head out to today's press preview for the Whitney Biennial, I have to wonder at the museum's gutsy choice of Francesco Bonami, former senior curator of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, to curate the show in collaboration with Gary Carrion-Murayari, the Whitney's associate curator.

Bonami received a general drubbing for two recent, high-profile curatorial outings: In his review of the 2003 Venice Biennale, the NY Times' chief art critic, Michael Kimmelman, called that show, "the largest, most sprawling and also by far the sloppiest, most uninspired, enervating and passionless Biennale that I can recall. The curator, Francesco Bonami, has provided the usual nebulous title, pregnant with meaning but signifying nothing. This time it's 'Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer.' It doesn't begin to account for the miasma that Mr. Bonami has allowed to be assembled."

Maybe that's why Bonami is playing it absolutely safe this time, titling the Whitney's show: "2010." And maybe by limiting it to 55 artists, he took to heart Kimmelman's comment at the end of his Biennale review:

I have a utopian idea: a small, tightly argued Biennale by a brave curator who chooses a dozen, or even a few dozen favorite artists, as opposed to several hundred, the works installed coherently.

There were 81 artists, in two venues, in the exhausting but endearing 2008 edition of the Whitney Biennial (which I discussed here, here and here).

Bonami provoked another critical storm with his 2008 show at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice---Italics: Italian art between Tradition and Revolution, 1968-2008 (which also appeared at the Chicago MCA).

Acknowledging the controversy over "Italics," Bonami said this to Georgina Adams of the Art Newspaper:

There has been a big stink over this show....I didn't intend to create a stink. But in Italy, when you step outside the 'family,' when you don't involve established figures, then you are wrong.

By contrast, introducing less established figures is usually what Whitney Biennials are all about. But the press release for this year's edition indicates that many of the chosen are already familiar to Whitney devotees: Eleven of the 55 artists in the show have been in shown in previous Biennials (most recently, in 2006, both Hannah Greely, whom I discussed here, and Josephine Meckseper). Four more 2010 picks have previously exhibited at the Whitney.

Whatever I think of the main event, I'm looking forward to the auxiliary one---a fifth-floor retrospective of artists in the Whitney's collection whose works were shown at Biennials over the last eight decades. This also harkens back to the 2003 Venice Biennale, in which Bonami included a retrospective of paintings that had appeared at the prestigious exhibition since 1964. According to Kimmelman, that show was "a hodgepodge, thrown together, with many holes in it, but it include[d] art that's carefully made and rewards scrutiny."

Michael Taylor, Philadelphia Museum's curator of modern art, hyping its "Three Musicians" at Friday's press preview for new permanent-collection exhibition

Let's get this out of the way: Its exhibition surcharge notwithstanding, the Philadelphia Museum's Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris, opening to the public on Wednesday, is an interesting show but not a great one. Its 56 works by the featured artist are fleshed out with 158 works by everyone from his indispensable partner-in-Cubism, Georges Braque, to such forgettable also-rans as Joaquín Valverde Lasarte, whose "The Hunters" (below) was, according to Taylor, "seen as shockingly modern [when it was shown at the 1932 Venice Biennale], not retardataire, as it seems today."


Joaquín Valverde Lasarte, "The Hunters," 1931

Since this is mostly a permanent-collection show (with 10 of the 214 works on loan from Philadelphia collectors, including museum trustees Gerry Lenfest and Ray Perelman), it is restricted by the scope of Philly's holdings, which are not in the same league with those of this country's premier Picasso repository, the Museum of Modern Art.

"I wanted it that way," Taylor maintained. "We could have gone to MoMA and the Guggenheim and borrowed all the paintings that you normally see." But he preferred to expose works that are not ordinarily on view and to explore Picasso's cultural milieu---the great, the good and (too often) the so-so.

He conceded at Friday's press preview that this approach left some gaps---most notably the lack of an important neo-classical PIcasso. He had to settle for this drawing:


Picasso, "Three Nudes on the Shore," 1920

But when it comes to Philadelphia's version of the celebrated "Three Musicians"---an elegaic portrait of Picasso (as Harlequin) with his friends, the deceased poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire (Pierrot) and poet Max Jacob (the friar), Taylor brashly claims bragging rights over MoMA.




Left: Picasso, "Three Musicians," 1921, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Right: Picasso, "Three Musicians, 1921, Museum of Modern Art
© Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Gaetano Armao of the Sicilian Ministry of Culture and Sicilian Identity, left, and David Bomford, acting director, Getty Museum, signing a long-term collaboration agreement on Feb. 9
Photo: Maureen McGlynn
© 2010 J. Paul Getty Trust

Yesterday's announcement of a new partnership agreement between the Getty Museum and Sicily, an outgrowth of the museum's agreement to return 40 objects to Italy, made me wonder if any similar new partnerships are being forged between Italy and the Metropolitan Museum, pursuant to the Met's giveback agreement (excerpted here).

The Met's spokesperson, Elyse Topalian, told me there's "nothing to announce at this moment," regarding Met-Italy collaborations. But she did have some news when I asked whether the 16 pieces of Hellenistic silver that had been scheduled to be relinquished to Italy last month had, indeed, left the building.

Elyse reported:

Yes, the Met has returned the 16 Hellenistic silver pieces from the third century B.C. to Italy, and, according to the agreement, they will rotate every four years between Sicily and New York (so they will be back on loan here four years from now).

The Met has just received new loans that were installed in the galleries last week: a rare, recently excavated ancient Roman dining set consisting of 20 silver objects, one of only three such sets from the region of Pompeii known to exist in the world; and an important ancient Greek kylix (or drinking cup). The dining set is installed in the Hellenistic Treasury and the kylix in the Belfer Court (both areas are within the galleries for Greek and Roman art on the first floor).

Topalian said that a public announcement of the new installation would be made shortly. Unlike the Euphronios krater, the Hellenistic silver left New York without my remembering to give you a last-chance alert. If you missed it, you'll just have to mark your calendar for early 2014, when it comes back for a four-year term.


Hellenistic silver at the Metropolitan Museum, including the 16 objects that have just been returned to Italy

Notwithstanding the new accord with Sicily, Getty-Italy relations were shaken last week by the Italian court decision ordering the seizure and return of the Getty Bronze. Regarding this legal battle, the Getty's assistant director of media relations, Julie Jaskol, told me:

We have asked the Court in Pesaro for a stay pending the outcome of our appeal to the Court of Cassation. We have filed an appeal with that Court. Our brief will seek to correct errors in the findings of law made during the proceeding in the Court at Pesaro.

Responding to my question about whether Italy can seize an object from an American museum on the basis of an Italian court decision, Jaskol asserted:

U.S. law does not support enforcement of an order based on a 40-year-old alleged export violation.

Time (and judges) will tell.

Regardless of what happens to the bronze statue of a young athlete, the Getty's limestone and marble Cult Statue of a Goddess (possibly Aphrodite) has a one-way ticket to Italy at the end of this year, pursuant to the Getty's giveback agreement.

Also as a result of that agreement, the Getty has already received several loans of objects from Italy. Similarly, the Met has received several loans, in addition to the newly installed arrivals.

The just signed Getty-Sicily agreement includes specific plans for cooperation on object conservation, seismic mitigation, scholarly research, conferences and, of course, exhibitions. The museum's former director, Michael Brand, told me that this accord was "the result of well over two years of negotiations and planning," which involved not only Brand and David Bomford, associate director for collections (who became acting director after Brand's resignation) but also conservator Jerry Podany and antiquities curators Karol Wight and Claire Lyons.

Wait a minute! Is the Hellenistic silver that Italy just recovered from the Met going to be loaned to the Getty for one of the planned exhibitions? The working title of a proposed 2013 show is: "Between Greece and Rome: Sicily in the Classical and Hellenistic Period." Its objects will come "from a number of Sicilian museums as well as from international museums with significant collections of antiquities found in Sicily," according to the Getty's announcement.

Morgantina, which Italy claims was the original site of the Met-relinquished Hellenistic silver, is, of course, in Sicily.

Artist-turned-curator Jeff Koons in his studio recently

With more details having emerged about the New Museum's upcoming Jeff Koons-curated show of Dakis Joannou's collection, Mar. 3-June 6, including a list of artists (scroll down), it seemed to be time for me to re-send my question that had gone unanswered by the museum's press office, despite my repeated attempts to elicit a response:

Is it pay-to-play?

That question seemed particularly pertinent (or impertinent) in light of the new press release for the show, now titled "Skin Fruit" (having to do with the inside/outside dichotomy that Koons had previously mentioned to me). Unlike most exhibition press releases, this one says nothing at all about how the show is supported.

Contrast that with this press release for the New Museum's just-closed Urs Fischer show, which listed an array of funders:

Brant Foundation; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Jeffrey Deitch; Dakis Joannou; Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann; Eugenio López; LUMA Foundation; Peter Morton Foundation; François Pinault; Ringier Collection, Switzerland; Tony Salame; Steven A. and Alexandra M. Cohen Foundation, Inc.; and Teiger Foundation. Additional support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.

Today, responding to another e-mail from me and a follow-up phone call, Gabriel Einsohn, the New Museum's communications director, at last sent me this note:

Dakis Joannou is not contributing funding to underwrite this exhibition. The exhibition is supported by general museum program funds. Associated educational programming and public events are supported by the Hearst Educational Fund, the Keith Haring Fund for School and Youth Programs, and the Charlotte and Bill Ford Artists Talks Fund. Support for the accompanying publication is provided by the J. McSweeney and G. Mills Publications Fund at the New Museum.

That was illuminating: It now appears that no outside donors---private, nonprofit or corporate---have stepped up to fund this private-collection display (only its educational component and catalogue).

Still, Gabriel's response didn't directly answer my question, which was:

Is Dakis Joannou providing any financial support, direct or indirect [emphasis added], such as catalogue, shipping, insurance, for the exhibition? If so, what is the nature of that support?

As I had noted in my above-linked post, not "underwriting" an exhibition wouldn't necessarily mean not providing indirect support for expenses related to the catalogue, shipping and insurance.

In a follow-up phone conversation after I received her e-mail, Einsohn unequivocally answered "No" to my question of whether any indirect support or funding of any kind was being provided for the exhibition by the collector. Why it took so long for me to get a simple answer to a simple question is anyone's guess.

Now that we've finally got that out of the way, let's look at the upcoming show's familiar roster of conventional museum favorites (linked at the top). With a few exceptions, the choices feel like a retrospective of New York museums' contemporary shows of yesteryear. This behind-the-curve vibe is not what I thought the New Museum had in mind when it announced its forward-looking mission as: "New Art, New Ideas."


From the upcoming "Skin Fruit" show: Jeff Koons, "One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank," 1985, Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens

Perhaps the more important question raised by the Joannou show---the first of the New Museum's new series, The Imaginary Museum, of exhibitions devoted to (as yet unnamed) private collections---is whether this museum has essentially revised its original mission, just two years after reopening. In my admiring review when the new SANAA-designed facility opened, I praised it for being an "uninstitutional institution, as envisioned by its late founder, Marcia Tucker....New York's market-obsessed, reputation-fixated artworld sorely needs a scrappy, edgy, bobbing-and-weaving outpost of the untidy cutting edge."

Now, instead of continuing its string of consciousness-expanding, boundary-busting shows assembled by savvy, adventurous curators, the museum will showcase a blue-chip collection (perhaps the first of many), consisting largely of known quantities, curated by a certified art star whose glitzy, bulbous sculptures have become icons of the art-market bubble.

While not directly addressing the Dakis Fracas, the Association of Art Museum Director's president, Michael Conforti, was clearly inspired by the controversy when he devoted his entire Letter from AAMD's President last month to "Private Collections in the Public Space."

Conforti stated:

We believe it is critical to maintain a balance between the benefit to the public of exhibiting privately owned works against the potential for conflicts of interest and the undermining of curatorial authority. In addition, because the monetary value of any work of art is arguably enhanced through exhibition in a public museum, museums must be mindful of showing works that may soon be destined for the marketplace.

All these issues must be weighed by an institution as it makes the decision to go forward with exhibitions that include works from private collections. A museum must be prepared to explain its decision in light of its mission and policies and the ethics of the field.

Similarly, in its prior statement about Art Museums, Private Collectors and the Public Benefit, AAMD discussed the various factors that museums should "weigh" in contemplating such exhibitions.

Suggestions to weigh things are not enough. Clear guidelines are needed to preclude collectors from paying museums to mount shows of their private troves, to prevent museum displays from morphing into presale exhibitions, and to guard against the conflicts of interest inherent in shows that are drawn entirely from the collection of a trustee of the exhibiting institution. In the latter case, I believe that no such show should be mounted unless the works on display are promised to the museum.

True, the New Museum is not yet a collecting museum. But it has previously suggested that it would like to become one. It may be too late to extract a commitment from Joannou to donate the art being loaned to the upcoming exhibition. But any future "Imaginary Museum" show drawn from a trustee's collection should make it clear, through just such a commitment, that it is mounted exclusively for the benefit of the public, not that of the trustee/collector.

UPDATE: Wait a minute! The New Museum's upcoming exhibition schedule, through Spring 2012, has just hit my inbox. Nary an "imaginary museum" in sight! Lots of interesting, off-the-chart ideas. Have they (wisely) decided to revert to the "real" New Museum and abandon the imaginary one?

The 1999 Abrams catalogue for a traveling exhibition of Polaroid's photography collection Cover image: detail from Silvia Taccani's "Composite #115"

The Polaroid Corporation's decades-old Artist Support Program (through which it bartered equipment for a collection of photographs by distinguished artists) has now become a Creditor Support Program.

In her e-mail accompanying the press relase for the highly controversial bankruptcy-driven dispersal, June 21 and 22, of more than 1,200 works from the Polaroid Collection, Sotheby's spokesperson Lauren Gioia wrote:

The first significant exhibition of highlights from the collection will be shown at Sotheby's New York from 17-21 March.

Actually, this is not the collection's "first significant exhibition," as I know firsthand. Back in 2006, I caught the show Innovation/Imagination: Fifty Years of Polaroid Photography at the Johnson Museum, the I.M. Pei-designed art facility of my alma mater, Cornell University.

I entered with low expectations, thinking that this would be a corporate-promotion exhibition, assembled at low cost to the museum but of meager artistic interest. Instead, I was blown away by the instantly recognizable oeuvre of many well-known photographers, who had taken a relatively limited (but immediate-gratification) device and put their unique, unmistakable stamps on the instant prints.

That traveling exhibition was launched in 1999 at the (now defunct) Ansel Adams Center for Photography, San Francisco, accompanied by a 120-page Abrams-published catalogue. In his review of the inaugural show, David Bonetti, then art critic for the San Francisco Examiner, described its highlights (which include works by Ansel Adams, Philippe Halsman, Paul Caponigro, Robert Frank, Robert Maplethorpe, Chuck Close, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, William Wegman, Lucas Samaras, Dawoud Bey, Yasuhira Ishimoto).

Bonetti felt that the show wasn't "as complete a survey as it might have been." But for me, previously unaware of Polaroid's enlightened sponsorship of artistic innovation, the show was a revelation.

For Chuck Close (as quoted by Carol Vogel in the NY Times), the sale of works created by artists who had given some of their output to the Polaroid Collection in exchange for material and equipment (and sometimes, direct grants) is "criminal."  Photography critic A.D. Coleman decried the sale (in comments to Lindsay Pollock of Bloomberg) as "against promises made to the photographers."

In response to my queries, Gioia of Sotheby's told me this about the circumstances of the sale:

The federal bankruptcy court [U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota] ordered the sale of the photos in our auction free and clear of all claims and encumbrances of any kind. This order was issued by the court after the court reviewed and specifically overruled the objections to the sale that were raised by a few photographers and others [emphasis added].

It is also significant to note that the federal bankruptcy court in a prior bankruptcy case involving Polaroid made similar findings of fact and rulings in a sale transaction that was approved in 2002.

Gioia also told me that "approximately 13,000 items remain in the collection." The 1999 catalogue put its trove of photographs at 23,000.

Veteran New York photography dealer Janet Borden sees the sale as possibly a great buying opportunity: According to the initial reports she's seen, the works seem "undervalued," she told me today. (The presale estimate for the collection is $7.5-11.5 million and many of the individual works' estimates can be found at the "press release" link at the top of this post.) Borden added that before she regards them as bargains, she will need to "see the shape they're in. Some [Polaroid photos] are in good shape; some are really faded."

Time and next month's presale exhibition of highlights will tell.

Morrison Heckscher, chairman of the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing, in the refurbished Engelhard Court last May (prior to the public opening)

Following up on my President's Day post, where we tracked down the Metropolitan Museum's George Washington-in-exile, here's my very belated take on the museum's refurbished Engelhard Court and period rooms in the American Wing.

But first, we should note that there's another iconic George Washington portrait by Gilbert Stuart to be found on display at the Met (whose American painting galleries are closed until 2011 for renovation). Besides the ones that we visited in Sunday's CultureGrrl Video (in open storage at the museum's Luce Center), there's also an important Stuart rendering of our founding father in the Alexandria Ballroom, 1793, one of the Met's 19 refurbished American period rooms. You can peer across the furnishings at a version, ca. 1800, of the artist's famous Lansdowne portrait, on loan from collector Michael Steinhardt:



The period rooms are visually stunning and brilliantly explicated by the new touchscreens, whose only "deficiency" may be superfluity. You can easily get engrossed in all the layers of detail about one room (its objects, its original occupants and its history both before and after arriving at the Met), leaving insufficient time for the other chambers.

For the first time, the American period rooms are arranged in chonological order. But to follow the intended path, you need to begin on the third floor. Many visitors, I suspect, will wander into the middle of the sequence, from the main level, entering through the preserved 19th-century bank façade at the far end of the sculpture court.

The courtyard itself is, to me, a largely unsatisfying experience. But first, this truth-in-advertising alert:

Below is the image of the redone court that the Met has been using in advertising. It was also seen last Sunday as the clickable "Enter Here" image on the homepage of the museum's website.

During my visit to the Metropolitan Museum late last week, to catch up on some exhibitions that I'd missed (including the glorious Bronzino show---another attribution exhibition but so much more!), I encountered this reminder of "Met Holiday Mondays," beside the $20-suggested-admissions-fee cash register:


"The Met is Open on Presidents Day"

Wait a minute! I thought that George was in exile, along with the most of the Met's American paintings---removed from view while construction continues on the expansion of the American Wing. (The paintings are due to return to full public display next year.) Does this call for another Metropolitan Museum truth-in-advertising alert?

Not exactly. Although the First President will not greet you in the Met's galleries (unless he makes a cameo appearance for Presidents Day), you can still visit him, along with many other American paintings from the collection.

In the CultureGrrl Video below, I'll show you how. We'll start with a view of the Engelhard Court of the American Wing, which reopened last spring. Just before the public opening, the estimable Morrison Heckscher, chairman of the American Wing, graciously gave me a preview of the redone courtyard and the refurbished and reconfigured period rooms, but I held off from reporting on these because I already had my Tom Campbell assignment from the Wall Street Journal; I didn't know then (long before my interview with the Met's director was actually arranged) whether I'd be wanting to discuss the American Wing in that piece. (Paid articles trump blog posts.)

I hope to redress my omissions regarding the American Wing in a future post. In a nutshell, I'm an admirer of the period rooms; a dissenter from the unqualified critical praise for the sculpture court, which I regard as cold and somewhat kitschy.

But for now, on this Presidents Day Eve, let's pay our respects to the Father of Our Country, still receiving visitors (although, as you will see, in rather undignified circumstances):

Picasso, "Self-Portrait with Palette," 1906, Philadelphia Museum of Art
© Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In her rundown last month of upcoming museum exhibitions of note, the Wall Street Journal's Candace Jackson highlighted the Metropolitan Museum's big spring show (which I later referred to in my own WSJ piece) of some 150 Picassos from its own collection---the museum's complete holdings of his paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramics, as well as some 50 prints.

Then Candace tantalized us with this come-on:

At least one significant painting in the show has never been seen before at the Met---and it will likely feature a parental warning. "Erotic Scene," a 1903 oil painting from the artist's "Blue Period," features a young Picasso being pleasured by a brunette.

Assuming that this is the same 1903 painting I wrote about for Artnet back in 1996 (scroll down to "Too Hot for the Met?"), "being pleasured" is Wall Street Journal-ese for "receiving fellatio" (which is CultureGrrl-ese for...never mind).

Mine is not a family blog; no "parental warning" is necessary:

"Victorious Youth," Greek, 300 - 100 B.C., J. Paul Getty Museum

''Today marks the end of the sacking of our archaeological treasures,'' former Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli exulted after today's ruling by an Italian appeals court that ordered the immediate seizure and return to Italy of the Getty Bronze.

Not so fast.

Here, in full, is the statement that just hit my inbox from the J. Paul Getty Trust:

The Getty is disappointed in the ruling issued February 11 by Judge [Lorena] Mussoni in Pesaro, Italy, involving the Statue of a Victorious Youth, often referred to as the Getty Bronze. The court's order is flawed both procedurally and substantively.

It should be noted that the same court in Pesaro dismissed an earlier case in 2007 in which the same prosecutor claimed the Statue of a Victorious Youth belonged to Italy. In that case, the judge held that the statute of limitations had long since expired, that there was no one to prosecute under Italian law, and that the Getty was to be considered a good faith owner.

In fact, no Italian court has ever found any person guilty of any criminal activity in connection with the export or sale of the statue. To the contrary, Italy's highest court, the Court of Cassation, held more than four decades ago that the possession by the original owners 'did not constitute a crime.

The Getty will appeal the Pesaro court's order to the Court of Cassation in Rome and will vigorously defend its legal ownership of the statue."

ANSA, the Italian news agency, in its report of the court order, stated:

Mussoni's decision overturned a 2008 ruling by another Pesaro judge rejecting Italy's petition to have the statue seized.

Missoni argued that it had become state property the moment it was fished out of the Adriatic off the town of Fano in 1964 and could not have been sold afterwards without breaking Italian laws on antiquities.

The Getty has argued that the bronze was likely found in international waters. But even so, it then arrived in Italy and was likely smuggled out of the country in contravention of Italian law, before ultimately being purchased by the Getty in 1977.

The case continues...

Christie's New York

Bear with me art-lings. It's CultureGrrl number-crunching time!

Christie's has had a penchant for what we can euphemistically describe as "creative accounting" in reporting its year-end sale totals. Apparently, my past critiques of that auction house's self-serving statistical shenanigans (here and here) didn't make much of an impression. So fire up your calculators, market watchers. Here we go again:

In a Jan. 28 press release, Christie's reported a 2009 recession-era worldwide sale total (including both auctions and private sales) of £2.1 billion/$3.3 billion---a drop from its 2008 total of 24% in British pounds, 35% in dollars. It was the firm's lowest tally (in pounds) since 2005.

In his comments to Scott Reyburn of Bloomberg, Edward Dolman, Christie's CEO, tried to make the best of this decline:

These figures were much better than we expected. The art market is vulnerable and we thought we'd be down 50 percent, as we were in the last recession in 1991.

Unmentioned by Dolman was the fact that, in dollars, the decline from the pre-recession 2007 totals was, in fact, very close to the 50% drop that he had feared from this recession. The current downturn began in the second half of 2008---a year when the decline in sale totals was 11% in pounds and 19% in dollars, notwithstanding the fact that the market was still robust during the first half of the year.

If we compare the £3.1 billion/$6.3 billion total in pre-recession 2007 to the 2009 totals of £2.1 billion/$3.3 billion, we get a decrease of 32% in pounds or 48% in dollars. The latter figure is in spitting distance of the 50% decline that Dolman told Bloomberg he had been pessimistically anticipating.

But Christie's dizziest statistical spin is its claim to a "56.4% global auction sales market share against its main competitor." That nameless nemesis is, of course, Sotheby's.

At the bottom of its recent 10-page press release, Christie's tell us how it arrived at its claim to 2009 market-share superiority:

All market share totals are based on publicly available competitor information.

So let's take a look at that publicly available information---on Sotheby's website:

Sotheby's has not yet issued its official report on 2009 results (expected soon). But at the very end of its online compilation of 2009 auction results, Sotheby's reveals that its worldwide auction sales totaled $2.28 billion for the full year. It also states, at the top of the report, that "sales results do not include post-auction private sales [emphasis added] or sales cancelled after the auction."

Here's what a Christie's spokesperson, Alexandra Buxton, told me in response to my query about the composition of its reported numbers:

Our sales totals DO include sales that occur after an auction [emphasis added], but not sales that are subsequently cancelled. We do not report sales totals excluding post-auction private sales.

In other words, Christie's market-share comparison is apples-to-oranges. Its purported 56.4% market share is beefed up by its (unquantified) post-auction private sales, whereas Sotheby's online 2009 total omits those sales. If you do the math, you'll see that Christie's $2.91 billion auction total is 56.4% of the $5.19 billion total for both houses, which Christie's arrives at by adding its total that INCLUDES post-auction sales to Sotheby's total that EXCLUDES them. In other words, it's a false comparison that works to Christie's advantage.

Once Sotheby's issues its official year-end report, we'll be able to compare total sales (public and private) of the two houses in a meaningful way.

Christie's also makes much of the fact that "average auction sold rates [by lot] rose 5% to 80% from 75% last year. The percent of lots sold at or above high estimate also increased to 36%, illustrating sustained price levels."

Actually, what this illustrates is that Christie's (like its competitor) has lowered its estimates and expectations to levels at which more works are likely to find buyers. That may signify a bottomed-out market, but not a robust one. Signs are somewhat encouraging that the beginnings of a rebound may be in prospect for the first quarter of 2010.

Enough auction analysis. Let's now crunch some CultureGrrl numbers:

My warm thanks go out to CultureGrrl Repeat Donor 112 from Davenport, IA, and CultureGrrl Donor 113 from New York City, not to mention my SECOND current museum advertiser. Speaking of sale records, might someone purchase a third museum ad for my righthand column?

Marc Wilson, director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in his office in the museum's Steven Holl-designed addition

The Nelson-Atkins Museum's recent announcement of 75 donors' gifts of 400 artworks in honor of the Kansas City museum's 75th anniversary and its soon-to-retire director, Marc Wilson, makes this a good moment for me to publish excerpts from my conversation with this dean of American art museum directors, which took place when I visited in November to cover the opening of the museum's new American Indian art galleries.

Surprisingly, there was no art in Wilson's office in the museum's new Bloch Building, because "the light levels are too high. I'd rather have the window." The brightest illumination came from his comments about the state of the American art museum, from the vantage point of his 28-year directorship (from which he will retire on June 1) and his lifelong commitment to Chinese art scholarship.

Rosenbaum: You mentioned to me [earlier in our conversation] that there have been shifts in fashion in museum leadership. What kinds of shifts were you referring to?

Wilson: We all now have audio guides. We all have to do them. But we often lose sight of the real core that should be guiding them. Often, it is---"I have to have exhibitions about this" or "I have to have BIG exhibitions that will draw." These trends last a while---the "hot issue" of the day. And I find there's very little real thinking about: "What does this really mean, cutting through the fashion of the decade? "

We're in a specific place with a specific mandate---getting back to the core, without getting stuck in excessive sensationalism: popcorn and calliopes. At the end of the day, you may hook people, but if they don't have some kind of rewarding time in those galleries with that art, then they're probably coming back, not for the art, but for the cupcake that you give them.

Rosenbaum: What should your museum be looking for in the new director?

Wilson: I think the director has to be passionate about art, wide open about the notion of human beings who make up this society, and understanding that it's not enough just to say that all art is good and you should look at it.

Some of the barriers---and, believe me, everybody has them---should be gotten rid of. We can say it's socio-economic, race or cultural background, but in my view, the biggest barrier is education.

For one-third of our visitors, the family income is below $55,000. If your ratchet it up, you find the income of about 80% [of our visitors] is below $70,000. What does that say to you? People say, "Art is for elitists." Well, we are elite in the sense that the works of art are superior achievements of exceptional people who have lived amongst us.

Rosenbaum: You have had some dealings with the Metropolitan Museum's new director, Tom Campbell. How do you regard him?

Wilson: He seems to be level-headed. I think he is open-minded. He seems to be flexible. He does not seem to be an ideologue. He's earnest in wanting to grow his own horizons and expand them. He seems to be trying to listen to his curators. I do not believe he is an autocrat. On the whole I believe him to be a person who seems to listen well.

He almost HAS to rely more on his staff for input. Philippe [de Montebello, the Met's previous director] would tend to hear an idea and it would come down as "yes" or "no." But I think Tom is a little more deliberate and that would be something that's in his favor as a new director.

He seems to be very smart. I think he's going to do very well. I like him. I've found him reasonable. He is not a stuffed shirt.

Rosenbaum: What are the most pressing issues that you think your institution will have to address, after you've left?

Wilson: Money is a big one. We don't get tax support and we don't charge. So we don't have a lot of alternatives. We don't have a huge vacationer population coming to us. We're not an international tourist center, the way New York is. They can charge a high fee, and the tourists are all willing to pay for it and they're willing to shell money out. We have a decent number of people from outside Kansas City, but it's not as though we're densely populated. We have to do what we can do---hustle, raise money and be very smart about how you spend it.

Rosenbaum: You mentioned to me that you want to go back to China to improve your language skills. What else will you be doing after you leave the Nelson-Atkins directorship?

Wilson: I love doing shows and exhibitions. I love making works of art come alive. It's about all those people out there and the great works of art: I love to make that connection.

In Chinese art, there's so much to do, in bringing all the research up to date. The basic scholarship on the Chinese paintings is up to date. But what we're now missing is the context of all this, in light of new discoveries.

The first thing is: I can't get ahead of the new director. I've got to be out of here and I've got to back off. You can't have an eminence gris hanging around the place. You have to completely change gears and put your self in a subordinate role.

Rosenbaum: Will that be hard to do?

Wilson: No.

University of Iowa Museum of Art's "Mural," 1943, by Jackson Pollock, as installed at the Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA

The "Envisioning Committee," appointed last year by the University of Iowa's president, Sally Mason, to brainstorm about a new facility to replace its flood-ruined art museum, has just issued its final report, which calls for a new, bigger facility to be built, preferably "closer to main campus...for better integration into student life."

The committee's report states:

There is a great urgency to bring back the University's premier collection and to house it in a building worthy of it and the community....Prior to the flood, the Museum of Art had approximately 75,000 square feet of space: approximately 25,000 square feet displayed the permanent collection; 20,000 square feet was temporary exhibition space to host special shows; 7,500 square feet was storage and preparation work space; 5,000 square feet was for classrooms; 5,000 square feet was retail space, including the Museum store and coffee bar; 5,000 square feet was office space, and 7,500 square feet was public space with an atrium used for events and gatherings.

The committee wants more space in the new facility, to allow for "expansion of the permanent collection" and "more space for temporary exhibitions." It calls upon the university "to set the replacement of the Museum of Art as a high priority, on par with rebuilding all other parts of the damaged arts campus."

Where the money for this will come from is anyone's guess. In an article published before the final report was issued, B.A. Morelli of the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported:

Based on a similarly sized design [not the committee-recommended bigger facility] and current market and standards, a new museum building could cost $40 million to $50 million, said Rod Lehnertz, director of UI planning, design and construction, who served as a committee adviser.

One committee recommendation is a no-brainer:

The new facility must be built outside the 500-year flood plain, and beyond future flooding concerns.

Meanwhile, the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, an hour's drive away from the Iowa City university, continues to house the bulk of the displaced collection and to exhibit its highlights, now including a new temporary exhibition of prints.

A recently renovated temporary facility on campus keeps more than 500 works readily available to students, and a traveling exhibition organized by the University of Iowa Museum of Art, Lil Picard and Counterculture New York (scroll down), will open on Apr. 20 at New York University's Grey Art Gallery.

Pam White, who guided the university museum through the crisis caused by the 2008 flood of the Iowa River, remains as its interim director, but a search for a permanent director is in progress.

My e-mail inbox tells me that getting your exhibitions (or other art-related announcements) on CultureGrrl is the goal of many readers. But few of you will make it to the end zone: Although I'm swarmed by by galleries seeking publicity, you should know (if you read me) that I cover almost no gallery exhibitions and I generally review museum shows only if I deem them highly important and/or I've got something unique to say about them.

So take a page from the New Orleans Saints' third-quarter playbook: Try a different strategy.

As I write this (during a break in the Super Bowl action), there is an animated, color ad from a museum in my righthand column and a classified ad in my middle column from a dealers' association. Instead of waiting for me complete their pass, they've taken the ball themselves and run it down the field.

In the meantime, I HAVE caught a pass from CultureGrrl Repeat Donor 111 from Princeton, NJ. Many thanks.

In the words of a couple of half-time entertainers: "Who Are You?" Let me and my readers know through CultureGrrl Classifieds or AJ Ads. Be like the Saints: Surprise me.

Wait a minute! The game's not over yet. Gotta go.

UPDATE: The Saints' strategy worked! But my donor strategy isn't: There's one address on my Donor's ($50 and up) list that is causing me to get an error message when I try to send links to my posts to everyone on that list. I don't know which one it is, so if someone's e-mail has changed, please tell me. As of now, I'm getting a message saying, "Domain of recipient doesn't resolve." This doesn't happen with my "Subscribers" list (under $50).

Meanwhile, if you're one of my valued Donors, please check the blog itself for new posts, until I can get this issue resolved.

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait, 1997, Museum of Modern Art
© 2010 Chuck Close

I don't have a link to this yet, but the list of President Obama's six new nominees to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) just hit my inbox. The visual-arts notable is artist Chuck Close, who served from 2000 to 2008 as the artist-member of the Whitney Museum's board of trustees.

The PCAH "advanc[es] the White House's arts and humanities objectives by working directly with the three primary cultural agencies---National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services." Current members of the committee (including Sarah Jessica Parker and Anna Wintour) are listed here.

Here are the details about the six new nominees, from the White House press office:

Chuck Close is a visual artist noted for his highly inventive techniques used to paint the human face, and is best known for his large-scale, photo based portrait paintings. He is also an accomplished printmaker and photographer whose work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions in more than 20 countries, including major retrospective exhibitions at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and most recently at The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 2000, Mr. Close was presented with the prestigious National Medal of Arts by President Clinton. Close is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has served on the boards of many arts organizations.

Fred Goldring co-founded the prominent California-based entertainment law firm Goldring, Hertz and Lichtenstein which represents numerous global superstar recording and performing artists, and is also co-founder of entertainment strategic consultancy, MemBrain, which works with Fortune 500 companies and new media and technology enterprises regarding entertainment marketing strategy. Mr. Goldring is also the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rock The Vote, and has been the co-recipient of an Emmy Award, a Clio Award, a Global Media Award and an NAACP Image Award.

Sheila Johnson is the founder and CEO of Salamander Hospitality; co-founder of Black Entertainment Television; a documentary film producer; and the only African-American woman to co-own three professional sports teams. A classically trained violinist who began her career as a music teacher, Ms. Johnson is a long time advocate for the arts. She serves as Chair of the Board of Governors of Parsons The New School for Design and several boards including Americans for the Arts.

Pamela Joyner is the Founder of Avid Partners, LLC. Her other business experiences include holding senior positions at Bowman Capital, LLC and Capital Guardian Trust Company. Ms Joyner is a former Co-Chair and current Trustee Emeritus of the San Francisco Ballet. She is a Trustee of The MacDowell Colony, The School of American Ballet and Dartmouth College. Ms. Joyner also serves a Director of The California Healthcare Foundation and an Advisory Board Member of First Republic Bank.

Jhumpa Lahiri is a fiction writer whose debut collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, received the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Addison M. Metcalf Award, and the New Yorker magazine's Debut of the Year. Her novel, The Namesake, was a New York Times Notable Book, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was selected as one of the best books of the year by USA Today and Entertainment Weekly. Her latest story collection, Unaccustomed Earth, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the Vallombrosa-Gregor von Rezzori Prize.

Ken Solomon is chairman of Ovation TV, a national cable and satellite network focused on bringing art, culture and personal creativity to all Americans. He is also chairman and CEO of Tennis Channel, the only 24-hour network dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. With more than 25 years of television and multimedia experience, Mr. Solomon has held top posts with the Walt Disney Corp., Universal Television, DreamWorks, News Corp. and Scripps. He is currently vice chairman of the Young Presidents Organization Bel-Air (YPO) and has been named "Humanitarian of the Year" by H.E.L.P. Group, one of the largest and most influential children's charities in the United States, for which he serves on the Circle of Friends advisory board.

Rendering of Frank Gehry's planned Abu Dhabi golf clubhouse

A 19th hole by Frank Gehry?

Apparently the architect is having such a good time on Saadiyat Island, where his Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is to supposed to open in late 2013, that he's accepted another commission there.

The Abu Dhabi-based The National reports that the golf clubhouse Gehry is designing will "put a postmodern twist on the traditional garb [the khandoura] worn by Arab men."

(Looking at the above-linked image of a clean-lined khandoura, I think you could say that "twist" is the operative word.)

Gehry's creation will be added to the just-opened golf course designed by legendary champion Gary Player for the Saadiyat Beach Golf Club.

But what's the status of the Guggenheim's satellite museum? Eleanor Goldhar, the Guggenheim's deputy director and chief of global communications (an upgrade from "deputy director for external affairs"?), told me that although the schedule for opening has not been altered, groundbreaking still hasn't occurred. (Director Richard Armstrong had told me last February that groundbreaking might occur as early as last autumn.)

And in other Gehry news: Julie Gustafson, development manager for the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, MS, informs me that her institution will open three of its five buildings in November. The project had been seriously derailed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the site just 11 months before the planned opening. Gehry has designed five new structures for the museum's new campus, which features his George Ohr Gallery Pavilion, below.

The Biloxi museum's opening exhibitions will include: the eponymous potter, George Ohr; Andy Warhol; Jun Kaneko; Richmond Barthe. (The "O'Keefe" of the museum's name refers to its family of leading benefactors, not Georgia O'Keeffe, the artist.)

Michael Brand, ex-director of the J. Paul Getty Museum

Michael Brand has now left the building and the Getty Museum is beset by yet another period of administrative instability. There has been no official explanation of why Brand threw in the towel, creating an informational vacuum inadequately filled by Jason Felch's analysis of the contretemps in the LA Times (which was entirely dependent on anonymous sources), and the Silence Dogetty blog, used by anonymous staffers to vent gripes about the administration. (See the 38 comments). In that blog's online poll, some 56 of 58 respondents said "No" to the statement, "I approve of the leadership actions of Mr. James Wood [president of the Getty Trust]." (Their views on Michael Brand were not polled.)

Trying to put his post-Getty life in order without benefit of secretaries or assistants, Brand has now decided to break his silence in a CultureGrrl Q&A. He provides significant details about his dissatisfaction with the direction the Getty has been taking and candidly discusses some of his differences with Wood. He also told me that the decision to part company was his alone: There was "no precipitating event," he said, and he was not asked to leave.

Here are his written answers to my written questions. Although he dodged my first query, he does get into substantive issues in subsequent responses:

Rosenbaum: Why did you decide to leave?

Brand: I prefer to not go into details, but I think it is fair to say that the environment became untenable.

Rosenbaum: What were your professional differences with James Wood?

Brand: With respect to the art acquisition budget, the director of the Getty Museum needs to know what level of funding is available for art acquisitions in order to be able to plan ahead strategically. It is especially important in the case of major acquisitions to be able to establish priorities.

I felt the recent centralization of most art acquisition funds in the President's office, where they can be used for several other different purposes as well, made such strategic planning much more difficult. The purposes for those funds are: "major" art acquisitions for the Getty Museum, "major" acquisitions for the Getty Research Institute, "strategic initiatives" and, less formally, contingency. The museum has retained a much smaller art acquisition fund for purchases not deemed "major."

The main difference in philosophy was in our approach to the budget cuts last spring, where, like the directors of many other major art museums, I decided to prioritize the retention of staff and their expertise when implementing the mandated 25% cut to the Getty Museum's operating budget.

Another, more specific, example was my inability last year to introduce a student and teacher discount for our museum visitors after the Getty Trust raised the parking fee from $7 to $15.

Rosenbaum: What are the problems inherent in the Getty's structure and how did those problems manifest themselves during your time there? How might this problem of structure be constructively addressed in the future?

Brand: The issues facing the next director of the Getty Museum have a history that began well before my tenure. Part of this is due to a unique structure that is unlike either the usual stand-alone museum model (where the museum director is the CEO and reports directly to a board of trustees) or the university model (where the art museum is usually one of the smaller units of a much larger group of faculties, schools and other related bodies). History shows that this has made the position of director of the Getty Museum an especially challenging one.

I believe that any constructive approach to resolving this situation would need to start by examining the intention of Mr. Getty's original gift, to look at how and why the Getty expanded and contracted over the subsequent years, and then to continue with an analysis of how best the Getty might maximize its potential as a visual arts organization in the new economic environment. Finally, it should include a discussion of what support the Getty Museum needs in order to maintain its standing as a world leader among art museums and the public face of the Getty in Los Angeles.

Rosenbaum: Is it accurate, as Ron Hartwig [the Getty Trust's vice president for communications] told me, that you have received no other benefit in connection with your departure other than the ones published in the "Compensation Disclosure" section of the Getty's website (as well as pension payment)?

Brand: This is correct. I received no further benefits upon my resignation from the Getty beyond those stipulated in my contract, with the exception of some minor details such as keeping for the next year the notebook computer on which I have my research writing and images, and which is part of my office in the Museum Director's Residence [which he can continue to occupy for a 10 months, under the severance provisions in his contract].

Rosenbaum: Are you already in talks with other future employers in the museum field? And are you also investigating other fields (which ones)? Are you hoping to direct another museum?

Brand: I have already had some informal discussions about possible future opportunities, not all of which are in the museum field, even though directing another art museum is still my central focus.

Brand also told me that he did NOT renegotiate his severance package in anticipation of his departure, as I had previously (and erroneously) stated. The Getty's website, which excerpts the severance provisions, had added more details about his contract (which had not changed) in its most recent compensation report (now updated to reflect his departure), compared to the 2008 report. This made it appear that the deal had changed, when, in fact, only the online description of it had.

My attempts to speak to James Wood about this contretemps, or at least about his vision for the Getty going forward, have thus far been unsuccessful.

In other Getty news, the Trust recently issued a stern rebuttal to this LA Times piece by Jason Felch, which now bears a correction. Felch had cited a "1976 letter in which one of J. Paul Getty's closest advisors refers to the museum's 'exploits over the bronze statue' as a "crime.'" He said that the letter had been "uncovered by a Times reporter" and was likely to be cited in closing arguments in a court case (decision now pending) in Italy regarding the ownership of the Getty Bronze.

The Getty Trust states that the "bronze statue" referred to in that letter was not the "Statue of a Victorious Youth" that is now the subject of legal proceedings in Italy.

This from the statement sent to the Getty's staff:

It would be a tragedy for the Getty, and LA residents who have come to love the "Statue of a Victorious Youth," if incorrect information contained in a Times story, available to the prosecution in Italy at a critical moment, played a role in a verdict against the Getty.

And in another Getty development, the museum, under the interim directorship of David Bomford, former associate director for collections, recently announced Brand's last major acquisitions coup---the $4.56-million purchase on Jan. 27 at Christie's, New York, of Boilly's "The Entrance to the Turkish Garden Café," 1812:

The $104.3-million man: Giacometti, "L'Homme Qui Marche I," 1960 (cast in 1961)

If you're looking for a symbol of a more robust art market, this emaciated six-footer could be it.

At today's Impressionist/modern auction at Sotheby's London, Giacometti's "L'Homme Qui Marche I," estimated to bring a "mere" £12-18 million ($19.33-28.99 million) sold for what the auction house said was a record auction price for any artwork---a staggering £65 million ($104.3 million).

But was it really a record? After a few calculations, I think the answer is yes.

I hesitated to cut and paste onto my blog Sotheby's exultant announcement, which I received many hours ago, because the total, which includes buyer's premium, was so close to the price for the previous champion, Picasso's "Garçon à la Pipe," 1905, sold at Sotheby's New York for $104,168,000 in May 2004, when the buyer's premium tacked onto the hammer price was lower than it is today. Was this merely a "buyer's premium record" or perhaps a "foreign exchange record"?

Turns out that the Giacometti's hammer price, as reported by Sotheby's was $93.09 million, compared to the $93-million hammer price for the Picasso---still (narrowly) a new record, even without figuring in this year's larger buyer's premium. The dollar is stronger against the pound now than it was in 2004, so I don't believe that conversion rates were a factor in making the London-sold Giacometti a record in dollars, as Scott Reyburn of Bloomberg seems to suggest.

Carol Vogel of the NY Times reported the Giacometti's hammer price in dollars as $92.5 million, less than what Sotheby's reported and also less than the Picasso's hammer price. Sotheby's used a conversion rate of 1.605, by which it multiplied the £58 million hammer price to arrive at today's $93.09 hammer price in dollars. Other sources quote a lower exchange rate for today, which would lower the dollar price. (You can see why my head is starting to spin. It would have been so much easier if both records has been achieved in the same currency.)

No matter how many hairs you split, though, the Giacometti does seem to have eked out a new auction record. Record or no, this monster price should give the art market a confidence boost. That said, prices and volume have dropped a long way and won't recover to former levels tomorrow. The Giacometti was an anomaly, not a definitive bellwether.

Sotheby's sale today totaled £146.8 million, compared to yesterday's Christie's London Impressionist/modern sale total of £76.83 million. The top lot at Christie's was yet another late Picasso, "Tête de Femme (Jacqueline)," 1963, £8.1 million (with buyer's premium), continuing the new vogue started by the Gagosian Gallery''s breakout Mosqueteros show.

It's an exercise in painting-by-numbers. (Scroll down to the video to see.)

The New York studio of Jeff Koons was abuzz last night with such artworld luminaries as Richard Armstrong, Adam Weinberg, Lisa Dennison, Agnes Gund, Lowery Sims, Richard Meier and, of course, CultureGrrl, ogling his paintings-in-progress, which were executed by underlings while the artist himself mingled with the crowd:



We media minions (Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York magazine, New Yorker, NY Times, ARTnews and Art in America, all in the house) were invited for the announcement of a new Koonsmobile commissioned by BMW, not yet designed but due to be completed by the middle of this year. Last year, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art displayed BMW "art cars" by four of Koons' illustrious predecessors.

No one would say what Jeff will be paid for this commission or where the finished car will be rolled out. Below is Koons (on the right, with two BMW honchos), after a brief speech in which he professed himself to be "really so thrilled to be involved with BMW....It's a profound vehicle [pun intended?] to participate and to make a car on such a platform of excellence."



Here's the model of the first BMW art car, designed in 1975 by Alexander Calder:



And here's the 1999 Jenny Holzer edition:



But frankly, art-lings, I wasn't much interested in a corporate promotion for a car I can't afford to drive. (Well, perhaps I could, but luxury autos aren't where I put discretionary cash.) I was much more interested in the abundant canapés from Per Se, a restaurant where I can't afford to eat:




Wanna know what CultureGrrl's driving, instead of a BMW? I'll Twitter it, a bit later. (Full disclosure: I have eaten at Per Se---at a couple of press lunches!)

It's a little bit late, you might say.

Actually, no. Pegged to the first anniversary of what's likely to be a long reign as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, my "Cultural Conversation" with Tom Campbell on the "Leisure & Arts" page of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal will focus on what he's actually accomplishing, now that he has hit his stride and made some changes. He's come a very long way from his first press conference and now projects an authoritative, if self-effacing, persona.

The piece will highlight some new developments at the Met and take you inside the office of this preeminent artworld figure who has been something of an enigma.

Actually, let's go inside his office right now. Here's the painting that Tom chose from the museum's American paintings department to hang on the wall opposite his desk:

President Obama
Photo: whitehouse.gov

President Obama today rolled out his proposed 2011 austerity budget, so let's comb his list of Terminations, Reductions and Savings for culture cuts.

But first, here's news that I couldn't find on the "reductions" list. In response to my query, Victoria Hutter, spokesperson for the National Endowment for the Arts, has just informed me:

In the President's budget, the NEA is to receive $161.315 million for fiscal 2011 which is the same that he proposed for fiscal 2010 [but less than the $167.5 million that Congress ultimately allocated for fiscal 2010].

Regarding how this will affect [NEA chairman] Rocco [Landesman]'s plans, given the economic realities and fiscal pressures that the country continues to face, the fact that the President has maintained his request for the NEA is encouraging. Also, Rocco continues to talk with other federal agencies about how we can collaborate and those conversations continue to be encouraging.

As for individual artists, Rocco has said that he would like to restore the individual artist grants, but also that it is not his to unilaterally change. Individual artist grants are not something that are on the priority list to take up in his first year, but something he will get to before he is done.

The President's 2011 request for the National Endowment for the Humanities was identical to that for the NEA. Like the NEA, NEH received an allocation of $167.5 million for fiscal 2010.

As of last Thursday, Landesman was still hitting his talking points about the inadequacy of his agency's current budget and his plan to ask Congress to allow him to reinstate artists fellowships. I strongly support him on both counts. But I'm not optimistic about either, especially in times when the arts, once again, are in danger of being considered a budgetary frill.

That said, here's the Presidential cultural cutback list:

---TERMINATION: SAVE AMERICA'S TREASURES AND PRESERVE AMERICA
Department of the Interior

2010 allocation: $30 million
2011 request: 0

The Administration proposes to eliminate the Save America's Treasures (SAT) and Preserve America (PA) grant programs so the National Park Service can focus resources on managing national parks and other activities that most closely align with its core mission. The SAT and PA programs have not demonstrated how they contribute to nationwide historic preservation goals.

---REDUCTION: COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS

2010 allocation: $10 million
2011 request: $5 million

The Administration proposes to reduce funding for National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs (NCACA) grants from $9.5 million to $4.5 million, and to convert administration of these grants from a non-competitive to a competitive awards process. NCACA grants support arts organizations in the District of Columbia.

NCACA grants were established by the Congress in 1986 as a non-competitive Federal grant program that provides funding for overhead costs to local D.C. arts institutions, such as the Woolly Mammoth Theater, the Kennedy Center, the National Building Museum, the National Symphony Orchestra, and Ford's Theater, among others. Rather than allocating funds based on performance or need, NCACA funds are allocated to 24 specific organizations based on a 25 year-old formula.

Some recipients receive Federal funds from other programs; for instance, the Kennedy Center received over $40 million in 2010 appropriations, and the benefits of its NCACA grant awards (which have averaged around $600,000 in recent years) have not been demonstrated. The Budget recommends reducing the amount of funding for NCACA grants by $5 million, and awarding $4.5 million for NCACA grants on a competitive basis to support organizations with the greatest need.

---REDUCTION: NATIONAL HERITAGE AREAS
Department of the Interior

2010 allocation: $18 million
2011 request: $9 million

The Administration proposes to reduce grants to non-Federal National Heritage Areas (NHAs) so that the National Park Service can focus resources on managing national parks and other activities that most closely align with its core mission. State and local managers of NHAs continue to rely on Federal funding, contrary to the original intent that Federal grants would be time-limited and NHAs would become self-sufficient. The NHA program also lacks key management controls to determine whether Federal funds are well spent and used to accomplish national goals.

The Congress has authorized 49 National Heritage Areas [my link, not theirs] (NHAs), including 30 since 2000. Local organizations administer NHAs to promote tourism and protect natural and cultural resources. The NPS Heritage Partnership program provides technical assistance and grants, authorized up to $1 million annually for up to 10 to 15 years that serve as "seed money" to help NHA organizations become established. Since 1986, the Congress has appropriated more than $150 million for NHA grants.

The Administration proposes to focus NHA grants on recently authorized areas and eliminate funds to those well-established recipients that have not worked to become self-sufficient. Since 1984 when the first NHA was designated, 17 areas reached or nearly reached their original sunset dates, but received extensions and continue to receive funding.

Criteria has [sic] not been established to evaluate potentially qualified NHA sites for designation. As a result, sites have been authorized that do not necessarily warrant designation. The program also lacks key management controls to determine whether Federal funds are well spent.

The Administration proposes a merit-based tiered system to allocate funding. NHAs established before 2001 would be ineligible for new base funding unless they have self-sufficiency plans as of February 1, 2010. NHAs established after 2001 would be eligible to receive a base allocation. All other NHAs that have Department of the Interior-approved management plans would be eligible to compete for additional grants that the NHA program would award using merit-based criteria.

Will Gompertz

Another day, another new arts blog. But this one is something of a watershed:

The BBC recently announced the debut of its new blog by Will Gompertz, the recently-appointed arts editor for BBC News. Gompertz had previously run the Tate's website, which, he says, "became established as the U.K.'s most popular art website."

The BBC states:

This is the first move towards giving a higher profile and more consistent focus to our arts reporting in general.

Here's the new blog, which could use a better name: Gomp/arts.

Wait a minute! Will's first and only post is dated Jan. 22. Don't blogs need to be regularly updated?

For more than a year, we've had our U.S. version of an cultural blog under the auspices of a major broadcast organization---the PBS NewsHour's Art Beat,